Something to make you think

Regulators are always subject to "regulatory capture" by the biggest private players. Thus, regulation never provides "fairness" but only continually raises the barriers to entry for all but the largest firms that can afford the fines and penalties. The regulators themselves are bought off. Lucrative jobs in the private sector await those regulators who make friends with those they are supposed to regulate. Regulatory democracy enshrines corruption throughout society. It substitutes mandates of man for competitive discipline and marketplace competition.

All regulatory agencies within modern Western democracies are corrupt. Laws are written to exempt the powerful and criminalize what was previously seen as respectable business practice. At the higher levels of regulatory democracies, those who enforce the "laws" are well aware of the system's basic corruption. None of it is intended to facilitate fairness; it has been constructed to ease the path of mercantilism for the most powerful.

One could say in fact that agencies like the tremendously inept SEC and CFTC are merely gatekeepers of the status quo. They have been put in place to give the public the sense that big financial players and banks are being "watched." In fact, as we can see from the letter written by Judge Painter, the CFTC in particular (but one could substitute almost any agency) are created not to impede business-as-usual but to enhance and it and protect it. That business-as-usual, of course, has to do with facilitating the power elite's stranglehold over wealth and power.

by Anonymous

reply 43

02/11/2013

I would include that tool of the pharmaceutical and agribusiness giants, the FDA, among those faux regulators.

by Anonymous

reply 2

10/21/2010

Yeah, OP, nice to see that the article wants to eliminate regulation and replace it with "private justice." Typical freeper bullshit. The answer is to throw some criminals in jail to teach them that robbery with a pen will be dealt with in the same manner as robbery with a gun.

by Anonymous

reply 3

10/21/2010

[quote]All regulatory agencies within modern Western democracies are corrupt.

I'd like to see them prove that. I don't believe it to be true for the UK for instance.

by Anonymous

reply 5

10/21/2010

Well why don't wr start with Trading Standards, various heritage and museum bodies, Ofsted and dozens of others.

by Anonymous

reply 7

10/21/2010

I think R7 is referring to UK regulatory bodies. the accusation wha that ALL regulatory bodies in ALL Western nations were corrupt.

The UK has a large number of regulatory bodies which are not perceived as being corrupt in any way such as the ones listed at the website below. One of those listed in R7's list was Ofsted which regulates state schools. The others are probably though of as regulatory bodies but are not considered so under the law.

by Anonymous

reply 9

10/21/2010

R9, the Freeper as Libertarian used 'Wake Up". Do not engage the violent drunk.

by Anonymous

reply 10

10/21/2010

Isn't the new head of the SEC a former Goldman Sucks VP?

by Anonymous

reply 11

06/26/2012

Lord knows I want Monsanto regulating itself. Because as a private corporation, I know that they have my best interests at heart.

Lord, Libertarians are idiots.

by Anonymous

reply 12

06/26/2012

R12, Monsanto has spent over $75M in the last 15 years "lobbying" (aka bribing) congress to pass laws that are favorable to them.

That is the opposite of libertarian.

by Anonymous

reply 13

06/26/2012

Corporations aren't people. They artificial entities, created by The Bureaucracy in order to shield the wealth of The Elite from the vicissitudes of their mad scheme to control money via interest rates and paper..and Monsanto (and GM, and Exxon, and Citi, and Pfizer, and Blue Cross, etc.) are all beneficiaries of that bureaucracy.

Giving them more power via legislation is just making the problem worse.

by Anonymous

reply 14

06/26/2012

How about starting a thread instead of bumping all the ancient ones, you insufferable twat. Or is your cheap, phony, selfish, humorless personality bent of parasitizing things and sparing yourself $18 a year in the process?

by Anonymous

reply 15

06/26/2012

why do freepers come here?

by Anonymous

reply 16

06/26/2012

Because when you can't come up with a coherent argument, you resort to name calling.

by Anonymous

reply 18

06/26/2012

I can agree regulatory agencies are rougher on the little guys, and I can see tha causing resent, but it doesn't mean we should do away with regulations.

We did that in military procurements and look what happened -- Haliburton.

by Anonymous

reply 19

06/26/2012

Are they always corrupt? Certainly not. If they were, you would see industry trying to uphold them instead of get rid of them. Fail, libertarian moron OP.

by Anonymous

reply 20

06/26/2012

R20, name one industry leader who is lobbying for lower barriers to entry, fewer regulations on any competitor, tax breaks for competing sectors and then you'll have a point..besides the one on your head.

And getting rid of government regulation will improve that situation exactly how, R13?

by Anonymous

reply 24

06/26/2012

Nah, R25, we don't think you're crazy, just stupid. And you do continue to prove that with your every post here.

by Anonymous

reply 26

12/20/2012

They aren't "always" subject to capture by the regulated OP. It's something happens because of corrupt politicians and administrators.

by Anonymous

reply 27

12/20/2012

OP is recommending government take over regulated industries through nationalization so everything can be ordered on efficient non-corrupt lines, right, OP?

by Anonymous

reply 28

12/20/2012

The opposite, R28

Destroy the "power centers" that allow them to run our country and decentralize their power, open them to competition, and provide simple, easy to understand laws to govern them. Not 1100 pages of lawyerspeak that allows them to do whatever they were able to bribe congress into inserting into some bill.

by Anonymous

reply 30

12/20/2012

R29 we do not have the only government in the world. There are many countries with non-corrupt regulation regimes.

by Anonymous

reply 31

12/20/2012

Former senior U.S. Treasury official Tim Adams will succeed Charles Dallara as the head of the Institute of International Finance, a bank lobbying group that represents more than 470 of the world’s largest financial companies.

Adams will take over the helm during a major rewrite of financial regulations across the globe and amid the continuing debt and banking crises in Europe.

Adams served as Treasury undersecretary for international affairs in the administration of President George W. Bush.

(ht WSJ)

by Anonymous

reply 33

12/30/2012

The Goldman Sachs unit Goldman Sachs Asset Management has hired Andrew "Buddy" Donohue, a former head of the division of investment management at the Securities and Exchange Commission, as deputy general counsel, according to an internal memo obtained by Reuters.

It's always nice to hire your former regulators.

by Anonymous

reply 34

12/30/2012

President Obama has nominated Dick Berner to head the Office of Financial Research. Berner is a revolving door insider.

He is currently Counselor in the Office of Research and Quantitative Studies at the Department of the Treasury. prior to that gig, he served as the Managing Director, Co-Head of Global Economics and Chief U.S. Economist at Morgan Stanley

He was a member of the Economic Advisory Panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at Mellon Bank, and a member of Mellon's Senior Management Committee.

Berner also served as Economist for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he co-directed the Fed's model-based forecasting efforts.

Berner is big on "tax reform". Translation: He wants to raise taxes.

by Anonymous

reply 35

12/30/2012

WSJ reports: After working long hours over many months crafting new rules for Wall Street, a number of government regulators are switching sides to work for the firms that will have to follow and interpret them.

Whenever there is a major policy change in Washington like the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, it enhances the marketability of government employees with specialized skills and contacts. But in the past, it was officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department in particular who found their expertise and contacts most highly valued in the financial industry[...]

At least nine CFTC employees have decamped since June for firms in finance, law and accounting that are figuring out how to comply with the Dodd-Frank overhaul. Six of the staffers were directly involved in rule making and three were in enforcement.

Among the firms doing the hiring are J.P. Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank AG, Nomura Securities, Covington & Burling LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Some are subject to the rules, while others advise clients who are[...]

Carl Kennedy, a staffer to Commissioner Scott O'Malia, went to J.P. Morgan, and Adedayo Banwo, a lawyer in the agency's general counsel's office, joined Deutsche Bank. Both firms and several other large banks are expected early next year to register as "swap dealers," a designation that carries with it governance rules and capital requirements.[...] critics of the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street say they worry ex-staffers could use their personal connections to pressure the agency into crafting rules favorable to their new employers.

What's really evil here is not just that these characters will provide workarounds to legislation they just crafted, but that they will influence the creation of new rules and regulations that will provide an edge for their crony firms, and create a moat that makes it extremely difficult for others to enter a sector.

by Anonymous

reply 36

12/30/2012

[quote]Berner is big on "tax reform". Translation: He wants to raise taxes.

Actually, most people who use that particular phrase want to lower taxes, even though taxes are already at historically low levels. It's a favorite Republican phrase, certainly.

by Anonymous

reply 37

12/30/2012

Freeper OP has more posts on this thread than everybody else combined. fuck off back to faux noise.

by Anonymous

reply 38

12/30/2012

Credit expansion is the governments foremost tool in their struggle against the market economy. In their hands it is the magic wand designed to conjure away the scarcity of capital goods, to lower the rate of interest or to abolish it altogether, to finance lavish government spending, to expropriate the capitalists, to contrive everlasting booms, and to make everybody prosperous.

"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."

This first stage of the inflationary process may last for many years. While it lasts, the prices of many goods and services are not yet adjusted to the altered money relation. There are still people in the country who have not yet become aware of the fact that they are confronted with a price revolution which will finally result in a considerable rise of all prices, although the extent of this rise will not be the same in the various commodities and services. These people still believe that prices one day will drop. Waiting for this day, they restrict their purchases and concomitantly increase their cash holdings. As long as such ideas are still held by public opinion, it is not yet too late for the government to abandon its inflationary policy.

But then, finally, the masses wake up. They become suddenly aware of the fact that inflation is a deliberate policy and will go on endlessly. A breakdown occurs. The crack-up boom appears. Everybody is anxious to swap his money against 'real' goods, no matter whether he needs them or not, no matter how much money he has to pay for them. Within a very short time, within a few weeks or even days, the things which were used as money are no longer used as media of exchange. They become scrap paper. Nobody wants to give away anything against them.

It was this that happened with the Continental currency in America in 1781, with the French mandats territoriaux in 1796, and with the German mark in 1923. It will happen again whenever the same conditions appear. If a thing has to be used as a medium of exchange, public opinion must not believe that the quantity of this thing will increase beyond all bounds. Inflation is a policy that cannot last.

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